The bicycle, in essentially its presently known form, was first introduced in England in the late 1800's. For about the next 100 years, various improvements were made in the basic bicycle, but it remained, generally speaking, a fair-weather pleasure vehicle. Among the many improvements that have at least been suggested for bicycles are wind screens or windshields which are attached to the front of a bicycle, such as to the handlebars, so as to give the bicycle a more streamlined shape, to protect the cyclist from flying objects and, in one instance, to give the cyclist some minimal protection from the elements. Typical wind screen attachments for bicycles are illustrated in Stevens U.S. Pat. No. 695,960, Hobbs U.S. Pat. No. 2,401,245, Herbert U.S. Pat. No. 4,690,721 and Kaucher British Pat. No. 21,989. It has also been proposed to provide a more complete, streamlined enclosure for a cyclist, such as illustrated in Bunau-Varilla U.S. Pat. No. 1,135,337 and German Patentschrift No. 696,304.
Although the prior art devices of the wind-screen type afford some degree of streamlining and a modicum of additional protection for the cyclist, they tend to make a bicycle heavier, more bulky and, at least in the case of the more complete enclosures, less stable in a cross-wind. Thus, such conventional devices, while offering certain new advantages to a cyclist, at the same time diminish the existing advantages of the bicycle or motorcycle over other forms of transportation.